


Not Your Savior

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action, Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-28
Updated: 2008-04-20
Packaged: 2019-01-19 03:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12402300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Young and helpless, old and bitter. Neither Harry Potter seems a likely savior. AU sixth year





	1. Betrayal and Visits

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Harry Potter narrowed his gleaming silver eyes in hatred of the wizard before him. Voldemort was laughing at him. The high, cold tones ripped through Harry’s skin, chilled his bones and fried his nerves. He had heard that laugh too many times in his short lifetime. It never meant anything good.

“ _Avada Kedavra_ ,”� Harry said quietly. Hatred would do him no good. Hatred only clouded his mind and made his reaction time slower. He knew this spell would not find its mark.

Voldemort sent the jet of green light back to Harry with an outstretched palm, snakelike eyes still smiling. Harry dodged, tossing himself to the ground and standing up after a messy roll. Shea would be ashamed of his lack of grace.

Shea. Harry’s tiny necromancer mentor was unconscious, chained to the altar in the center of the room. Blood trickled down his face from a gash across his forehead. He looked even paler than usual. Harry had to get to him, they had to Apparate out of this nightmare….

He ran, knowing that fighting Voldemort was useless. He was immortal now. There was simply no point.

“You are so predictable, Potter,”� Voldemort hissed, appearing ahead of him. Harry performed a flip over his head and landed, running, before a spell knocked him over. He hit the floor and was about to roll away again when a second spell pounded into his back, keeping him pinned.

“You don’t have any actual goals in life, do you, my young foe?”� Voldemort asked, almost as if he were a concerned teacher. Harry felt a rib crack as his torso was pressed into the ground. “An Auror of nineteen, you just live to kill me and my followers. Pathetic,”� Voldemort whispered the last word.

Harry ignored the words and the physical pain, concentrating on sending a magical shockwave through Voldemort’s body using necromancy. The Dark wizard shrieked and fell back, his spell forgotten, and Harry sprang up to continue running as if he hadn’t been stopped.

“You can’t stop me, Potter!”� Voldemort appeared in front of the altar, blocking Harry from reaching Shea. “I have achieved my goal! Oh yes…and now, it is time for you to give up on yours…”�

Harry raised his wand and opened his mouth to fire the killing curse again, even in vain, but his wand was carried away to Voldemort’s waiting hand before the words escaped. Voldemort began to laugh again. Harry was about to try a wandless spell when he found himself flying through the air. He landed roughly on the stone altar next to his mentor. All of this happened in about two seconds.

“ _Avada-_ " Voldemort started to shout. But Harry had Summoned his wand and grabbed Shea’s arm before Disapparating to safety.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry Apparated into the kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. He looked down to his hand, clasping…nothing. Shea wasn’t there.

_Subject-specific Anti-apparition charm_ , Harry thought to himself in a rising panic. He had left Shea behind by accident. How could he have forgotten to check for that?

“Harry!”� Hermione’s shrill voice reached his sensitive ears. “You shouldn’t have stayed there! You should have retreated with us-”�

She stopped speaking as Harry turned to face her, looking livid.

“You left us,”� he said in a deadly calm voice. It was not a question or even an accusation. It was merely a statement of fact. Hermione’s expression changed from one of worry to fear.

“Well, yes,”� she said quietly. “Harry, it was bad, we couldn’t-”�

“Don’t talk to me,”� Harry snapped, uncharacteristically angry. He had done away with extreme emotions long ago, and outbursts were rare. He dropped into a chair by the table and buried his face in his hands.

“Is Harry back yet?”� Lupin’s voice came from the threshold. Harry heard Hermione’s retreating footsteps and the brush of Lupin’s robes on the floor as he came closer.

Neither spoke for several tense moments. Finally, Lupin sat down across from him and broke the silence.

“Everyone did all that they could, Harry. Including you.”�

Harry looked up, silver eyes glistening. “You always say that,”� he said softly. “And yet nothing ever changes. We never win.”�

“No,”� Lupin admitted. “But we haven’t lost yet, either.”�

“We will,”� Harry said.

“You don’t know that-”�

“I do,”� Harry interrupted. His tone left no room for argument. “I can’t kill someone who has achieved immortality. All we can do is kill his followers, but they just keep coming. He’s already in control of all of Britain, and he’s spreading. The next great plague,”� Harry finished his rant bitterly.

Lupin was quiet.

“Why did you leave us?”� Harry asked suddenly. Lupin shifted uncomfortably.

“We were overrun, Harry. There was no way to win that fight.”�

Harry searched his former professor’s gaze. After a moment, he nodded, satisfied.

“I don’t think I need to go back for him,”� Harry said, calmer now. “He’s powerful enough to get out of this mess.”�

“I agree,”� Lupin said, thankful Harry wasn’t about to embark on another suicidal mission. “We should call the Order for a meeting on what to do next. If we can’t destroy him, we can at least slow him down.”�

Harry stared into space, not listening to the werewolf. There was a way to accomplish his goal.

Voldemort was right. He needed to accomplish his goal.

He stood up abruptly, not bothering to look at Lupin again as he sprinted to his room. The pain in his ribs, forgotten in the pain of the moment, returned and went ignored again. He locked his door, sealing it with a charm, and rummaged through his desk for parchment and a quill.

Harry scribbled down a hasty note to Lupin and the rest of the Order members, then focused on other matters. He was going to attempt a spell that Shea had mentioned to him once and he had read about, fascinated. After the destruction of most of the Time-Turners in existence in his fifth year, the subject of alternate methods of time travel had been on many minds.

Harry had never been into the scientific aspects of magic like his teacher, but Shea had managed to engrain an appreciation for them nonetheless. Harry struggled to remember the bits about physics and time as he pulled a dusty book off of the shelf.

“Harry?”� Lupin’s worried tones sounded from behind the door. “Harry, what’s going on? You know you can talk to me at any time.”�

Harry smiled grimly at his former professor’s appropriate use of words. “Yes, I expect I’ll be doing that,”� he said aloud as he found the page he was looking for.

“What was that? What are you talking about?”� Lupin’s muffled voice demanded. The doorknob rattled. “Harry, let me in!”�

Harry didn’t bother to respond. He was beginning the spell and was too deep in thought to be bothered. This would be the first time he had attempted the complex spell, but after years of instruction with Shea, he was a pro at casting new spells correctly on the first time. According to the little necromancer, spell work is like music, and learning new spells is like sight-reading. The more you do, the better you become.

Harry had done a lot and was one of the best. He concentrated now.

How many times in the past few years had he desperately wished he could turn back time? Too many, Harry thought to himself. Sirius’s death. Neville’s death. Arthur Weasley’s death. Snape’s death. His own attempted suicide….

Harry wondered how much of that could actually be changed. What could be changed, and how would it affect things? On the grand scale, did any of it matter when it came to accomplishing his one goal?

Harry thought carefully and quickly. Coming to a decision, he thought of the time he needed to visit in order to make the best possible changes. He drew his wand and lightly tapped a stray button lying on the desk.

“ _Portus preteritus portinus_ ,”� he said firmly, keeping his destination in mind. The button glowed blue for a moment before returning to its normal appearance.

“Harry! What are you doing? Did you make a Portkey?”� Lupin’s voice was growing more frantic and angry.

“I left you a note on the desk,”� Harry said in response. He touched the button and disappeared.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry Potter’s sixteenth birthday was coming up in two days. Never had he looked forward to it less.

He wasn’t even at the Dursleys', his typical summer haunt at Dumbledore’s request. He was with his friends at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. And he wanted to die.

_I’m useless_ , Harry thought. _I can’t kill Voldemort. I can’t come close. I’m not their savior._

“Harry?”�

Harry turned around in his seat to see Albus Dumbledore standing in the threshold. He straightened slightly.

“Sir?”� Harry said quietly.

Dumbledore entered the room–Sirius’s room–slowly, walking to stand next to the forlorn chair where Harry was seated.

“I thought I would find you here,”� the old wizard said gently. “Molly is quite upset that you’ve missed two meals today.”�

Harry shrugged in response. Dumbledore continued.

“I wish for you to have private lessons, Harry,”� he said bluntly, correctly sensing that Harry was not in the mood for the usual verbal dance of avoidance.

“Not Occlumency?”� Harry asked, horrified. Those lessons hadn’t gone well.

“Possibly,”� Dumbledore admitted. “However, these lessons will be more general, with a focus on dueling.”�

There was a long pause. “You want me to be trained so I can kill Voldemort,”� Harry said quietly.

“Yes,”� Dumbledore said simply.

Harry sighed and looked away. That was all Dumbledore wanted. He wanted to use Harry as a weapon. _I’m not your savior_ , Harry thought bitterly.

Instead of saying this aloud, he asked, “Who’s going to teach me? You?”�

Dumbledore shook his head, and his customary tall wizard’s hat drooped slightly. “I want you to be instructed by the best.”�

“Aren’t…aren’t you the best, sir?”� Harry asked, confused.

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled slightly at this, and he sat down in the other chair in the room. “As flattering as it is to hear you say that, Harry, I must shelve my ego for a moment and admit that I am not.”�

“Okay,”� Harry said, still confused. “So who is?”�

“A former student of mine by the name of Shea Quin,”� Dumbledore answered. “He memorized the entire Hogwarts library by the time he was thirteen years old. I daresay his knowledge of magic far outstrips that of anyone else alive.”�

“Sounds like someone Hermione should meet,”� Harry muttered. Dumbledore smiled.

“I’m sure you two will get along just fine as well,”� he said, standing up to leave. “You have much in common.”�

Dumbledore walked toward the door, then paused. “You should get some fresh air, Harry. This room is stuffy.”�

Harry stared, and Dumbledore reached the door. It was halfway open when a loud wind and stomping noise filled the room. Both the young and old wizards whirled in their spots to view the source.

A wizard with untamed black hair and eerie silver eyes stood in the middle of the room, clutching a button to his chest. He looked up from the ground and a small smile lit his familiar face. Haunted silver eyes met shadowed green ones.

“Hello, Harry,”� Harry Potter said.


	2. Silver's Infiltration

Harry’s wand, always at the ready these days, was out and pointed toward the person who looked like him in an instant. 

He was about an inch taller than Harry was, clad in simple black robes that made his presence imposing and almost frightening. His eyes were a freakish silver, shining from his face and devoid of emotion. Beyond that, he was identical to Harry.

“Harry, you’re pointing your wand at yourself. Please stop,”� the other said calmly.

“What’s going on? Who are you?”� Harry demanded. His wand did not waver.

“Yes, those are very good questions indeed,”� Dumbledore mused, closing the door to Sirius’s room. His twinkling blue eyes scanned the newcomer cautiously.

The Harry look-alike paused and looked at the ground for a moment. “This is going to be difficult to explain,”� he said slowly.

“Well, start or I’ll hex you,”� Harry said angrily. He didn’t like this situation. What if it was another trick of the mind? What if he was finally going mad? What if this bloke was a Death Eater with slightly ineffective Polyjuice potion?

The other quirked an eyebrow. “Very well. My name is Harry James Potter. I’m nineteen years old and currently working as an Auror. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic or silly, I am from the future.”� He fixed Harry with a silvery stare. “Will you put that thing down now?”�

“Interesting claims,”� Dumbledore said, gliding over to the older Harry and inspecting his face. “Tell me, Harry, who is your least favourite Hogwarts professor?”�

He grimaced. “Either Snape or Umbridge. It’s a tie.”�

The younger Harry waved his wand irritably, and red sparks shot out the end. “Loads of people know that!”� he spat.

Dumbledore nodded. “Perhaps they do. Who is your favourite, then?”�

The silver-eyed Harry thought for a moment. “Another tie. Lupin or Quin.”� He paused. “When you made Shea a professor, that is.”�

“Did you just overhear our conversation?”� Harry asked, still suspicious.

“No,”� the other responded. Then he smiled softly. “But I do know what you talked about.”�

“Put your wand away, Harry,”� Dumbledore said. He placed his hands on the other Harry’s shoulders, still looking into his face. “This man is definitely you. He still cannot master Occlumency.”�

Harry scowled and tucked his wand back into his pocket.

“Harry’s first question is still unanswered, Harry,”� Dumbledore said in a casual tone as he released the nineteen-year-old. It was as if he dealt with time travelers and multiple copies of the same person every day. “What is going on?”�

“That’s the part that’s hard to explain,”� the older Harry said, displaying awkwardness for the first time. 

“Why don’t you start with why you are here?”� Dumbledore prompted gently. Harry stared, feeling unnerved as his older self began to speak.

“Things are bad three years from now. Voldemort is immortal. I don’t know how he did it. Hermione and a few other Order members have been researching possible spells for months now, but we’re not finding anything. So I can’t kill him,”� Harry said in an expressionless tone. “He’s been gaining more and more followers. He took out the Ministry of Magic last year, and his influence is spreading around the world. We’re losing.

“I’m here because I am powerful enough to kill him, but three years too late. So I’ve come back to a time when I can kill him.”� The older Harry looked too determined for a nineteen-year-old. He was downright scary.

The younger Harry thought furiously. A possibility had occurred to him. “Couldn’t you have gone back to about a month ago and-?”�

“I considered it,”� the older one admitted, voice low. “Sirius was the only father figure I’ve ever had–well, you know that,”� he said sheepishly. “But-”�

“But what?”� Harry interrupted, desperate now. “You could bring him back, you could stop me–us–from going-”�

“I’ve put a lot of thought into this, Harry,”� Harry said sadly. “I want to save Sirius, but it’s not what is best.”�

Harry gaped at this pronouncement. He was contemplating suicide after this latest blow of Sirius’s death. How could this future version of himself possibly believe that Sirius’s death was for the best? 

Seeing his younger self’s disbelief and outright shock, the silver-eyed Harry asked, “Remember what our greatest weapon against Voldemort is?”�

Harry looked away in mild fury. “Love,”� he said resentfully.

The older Harry nodded. “I’ve faced him about eight times in the past two years, and the only reason I can fight him is because of that memory of losing Sirius. Remember how he couldn’t be in your body when he tried to possess you? It’s the same thing.”�

Harry could not be mollified. “So being a weapon is more important to you than Sirius’s life?”�

His older self winced slightly. But only for a moment, and only slightly. “Yes,”� he said.

Harry shook his head, backing away. “Then you’re not me at all.”�

“No,”� the other agreed. “I’m not. And I don’t want you to be like me, which is another reason why I came to this time.”�

Harry swallowed. What did that mean? 

“How did you come here?”� Dumbledore asked. Harry started; he had almost forgotten that the old headmaster was in the room.

“A modified Portkey spell,”� silver-eyed Harry answered. “I started in this very room, three years in the future, and charmed this button-“ he held it up “-to transport me to the same place in a different time. I had hoped to come out at this exact spot, so I guess it worked.”�

“Interesting,”� Dumbledore mused. “May I ask what your plan is?”�

Harry hesitated. “Well, I’m not actually sure it’s going to work-”�

“Great,”� green-eyed Harry said sardonically.

“-but I want to trade places with my younger counterpart, so I can make the necessary changes to the timeline,”� Harry finished. 

“What?”�

“Why wouldn’t it work?”� Dumbledore asked calmly, pointedly ignoring the younger Harry’s comments.

“It’s not like a Time-Turner. If it was, then I would remember seeing my older self when I was sixteen,”� Harry explained. “I think what I’m doing is creating alternate universes. Or timelines. Something like that.”� He turned back to Harry. “So when you take my place in the future-"

“If I take your place,”� Harry said crossly.

“Things will either be the same as when I left, or Voldemort will be dead and it worked. I’m not sure,”� older Harry finished. “But the future as I left it needs a Harry Potter, nineteen or sixteen, it doesn’t matter. And this timeline probably can’t handle two of us. So-”�

“So you want me to leave this time and take your place in the future,”� younger Harry said, not enthused about the idea. He was still hoping this was all some strange dream.

His older self nodded, black locks falling into his bright eyes. 

Harry sat down heavily. This was too much to handle. He didn’t like his future. He didn’t want to become a heartless freak. His older self scared him, and Harry was rarely scared by anything.

“Why are your eyes silver?”� Harry asked, stalling for time and somewhat curious about the matter.

Older Harry averted his gaze, as if talking about his eyes was a sensitive topic. “I tried what you were thinking about before Dumbledore walked in. It didn’t work.”�

Dumbledore stiffened. “What’s this, Harry? Either one of you can answer,”� he added.

“I tried to commit suicide the day before my sixteenth birthday,”� the older one responded coolly. “Shea saved me by transferring some of his powers to me, and I’ve looked like this ever since.”�

Dumbledore was silent. Both Harrys watched in shock as the old eyes welled up with tears. 

“I’m sorry, Harry,”� he said gently.

“So that’s another reason why I came to this time,”� silver-eyed Harry said, ignoring the apology. “I don’t want my younger self to do that. Necromancer powers are more trouble than helpful, and people are always afraid of me. Life became worse after I tried to end it.”�

Harry sat still, feeling dizzy at this point. He didn’t want anyone to know about his suicidal thoughts, least of all Dumbledore. He was kind of glad to hear that it didn’t work, however. It took away the pressure of deciding whether or not to go through with it, if he already knew the outcome.

“I’m sorry, Harry,”� Dumbledore repeated, looking back and forth between them.

Harry took a hint from his older self and did not respond. He wasn’t ready for an apology, or pity, or anything. He just wished that no one knew.

The three wizards were silent for a long moment as each turned to their own thoughts.

“Remus is waiting for me,”� the older Harry said suddenly.

“Is he? How?”� the younger Harry asked.

“Well, I think the same amount of time that passes here passes in the future,”� Harry explained. “So I’ve been gone for about five minutes, and Remus is probably panicking.”�

“You didn’t tell him what you were doing?”� Dumbledore asked, somewhat amused even if he still looked stricken. Harry felt a sick sensation of satisfaction at causing the old wizard pain. He did his best to quell the feeling, disgusted with himself. 

“No, he would have stopped me,”� older Harry said.

An awful thought occurred to sixteen-year-old Harry at the mention of the Order member. “How many more people have died?”� he asked.

“Too many,”� was the response. 

The two Harrys and Dumbledore were silent for a few moments more. Dumbledore was the first to speak.

“I think you should exchange places, Harry,”� he said. He smiled. “Or, if you prefer, exchange times. I believe I can trust you to make the right decisions,”� he finished, looking over at the older Harry, who nodded gratefully.

“I think it’s the only way,”� silver-eyed Harry said softly. 

Harry was starting to agree. “But you said it might not work,”� he pointed out.

“Right. Because if we are making multiple timelines, then the one that I come from is still bad,”� his older self said. “But at least one won’t have Voldemort in it anymore,”� he finished darkly.

Harry looked at himself in a mixture of awe and pity. With hardened features and emotionless eyes, he was every inch the hero and savior everyone expected him to be. But that was all his older self cared about. Being the savior. Doing his duty. Saving the world from the Dark Lord. The nineteen-year-old was shaped by the die cast by the wizarding world. And he was terrifying in more ways than one.

But what was he? He was just in the way. He couldn’t destroy Voldemort right now. Familiar feelings of being a useless burden rather than the child savior began to overtake him again. He was useless here, and he was certain to be even more useless in the future, when everyone was probably used to him being an all-powerful Auror….

“But what if it doesn’t work in the future that you come from?”� Harry asked slowly. “What if you only succeed here? I mean, if you can’t kill him, what am I supposed to do?”�

The silver eyes clouded for a moment. Harry’s older self approached him, looking down from his inch of greater height. 

“You’re more powerful than you think, Harry,”� he said seriously. “Don’t doubt yourself.”�

“It just sounds like I’m going to be trying to fill some larger shoes than usual,”� Harry said, embarrassed. 

“You’ve taken Voldemort on alone more times than most of the Order, and you’re only sixteen. You’ll be fine,”� the older Harry said.

“I don’t think so.”�

“Well, excuse me for thinking highly of myself,”� silver-eyed Harry said, smiling. 

Harry sighed. This was still too weird. Yet it seemed right.

“What can I do?”� Harry asked, resigned. He would do his duty. Even if he wasn’t really the one doing it…his head began to pound in a mixture of confusion about time travel and nerves. 

“Thanks, Harry,”� Harry said quietly. “You can touch this button. When you get there, tell Remus to calm down and read the note on the desk.”�

“Right,”� Harry said.

“You can trust Remus and Shea with anything,”� his future self added. “They’ll watch out for you. And do me a favor and watch out for them, too.”�

“I will,”� Harry said. He reached out to take the button. He stopped, his hand halfway there. 

“Will I return here any time soon?”� he asked.

“I don’t know,”� the older Harry answered truthfully.

“Good luck, Harry,”� Dumbledore said. His eyes were twinkling again.

Harry nodded, took a deep breath, and accepted the button from his future self. 

The room blurred in and out of focus. Then all was normal, except Dumbledore and his strange future self were gone.

For a moment, Harry wondered if it really had been a strange dream as he looked around the familiar, unchanged surroundings. Then-

“Harry! Harry, are you in there? Open the door!”� Lupin’s frantic yells sounded from outside the closed door. 

_No such luck_ , Harry thought grimly. He walked to the door and opened it.

“About time!”� Lupin shouted at him. “What were you thinking? What were you…”�

Lupin’s rant drifted off as he looked into Harry’s green eyes.

“Oh gods, what did he do?”� Lupin whispered.

Harry’s heart wrenched as he saw Lupin’s face, now heavily lined with three more years of stress and troubles, pale in astonishment at his arrival. The werewolf’s eyes stared into his brilliant green ones, disbelieving. 

Harry now knew how showing up in a different time must have been like for his silver-eyed counterpart. So far, he had only seen one person who he knew in this alternate timeline, but one familiar face was enough. Things had changed. The Lupin of the past was ragged and drawn, but this one looked nothing short of desperate. 

_I guess it didn’t work_ , Harry thought to himself, feeling miserable. This time was how the silver-eyed Harry had described it. Things were bad. They were losing. Voldemort was still alive. 

And how was he going to explain all of this? His older self had vanished for a few minutes, and a younger version had taken his place. It wasn’t exactly normal, and it wasn’t going to help this Order of the Phoenix out at all. Harry knew his older self’s powers were probably far greater than his own, what with the necromancer abilities, whatever those were. This timeline got the raw end of the deal in every way imaginable. 

“Er, hi, Remus,”� Harry said awkwardly. 

Lupin strode forward, backing Harry into Sirius’s room once again. He closed the door gently, as if trying to create silence in order to make up for his noise earlier, before speaking.

“He performed the time travel Portkey spell, didn’t he?”� Lupin asked, voice low and breathy. Harry wished he would stop staring at his eyes. Eventually he couldn’t handle it anymore and looked away.

“Yes, and I took his place,”� Harry said. Then he remembered something. “My older self said to tell you to calm down, and to read the note on the desk.”�

Lupin stared for a moment more, then tore his gaze away to grasp a note from the desk. Harry joined him, watching as he unfolded the parchment to reveal a messily written letter:

_To Remus,_

_I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was doing, but you would have tried to stop me and I can’t have that. This is the only way._

_I have gone back three years in time to kill Voldemort at a time when it was still possible. I hope that you never read this, because if you are it means that things didn’t go as I had planned. The Portkey spell may have created two separate timelines. I’m sorry if that’s what happened. But I had to try this._

_I have sent my sixteen-year-old self to your time to take my place while I take his. Please respect him as an adult, don’t think of him as a child. I want him to take my place in the Order, age rule or not. Remember, he’s the same person as me._

_Please rescue Shea for me if he does not return in three days. He’s a friend. I know many in the Order don’t care about him as a person, but tell them this: Voldemort will use him if he can’t escape, and that will not be good for anybody._

_Don’t stop fighting him, even if we’re losing-_

Harry wasn’t done reading when Lupin crumpled the note up in a shaking hand. The werewolf looked down at him, and Harry fidgeted. 

“This is all very confusing,”� Lupin said simply. Harry nodded in agreement. “And it didn’t work.”�

“So what do we do now?”� Harry asked. 

Lupin hesitated, staring at Harry once again. “Your eyes may be the most obvious thing that has changed, but your voice is the most striking. The older Harry’s voice is always soft. Soft and deadly. You’re not quite there yet.”�

Harry was silent, unsure of how to respond to this. Lupin must have noticed his awkwardness, for he went back to the conversation at hand.

“We continue as if nothing has changed,”� he said.

“Because nothing has changed, really,”� Harry said. 

Lupin smiled for the first time. “Yes, that’s what the note said. You’re the same person, just younger.”�

“Does that mean I’m in the Order?”� Harry asked. Lupin frowned.

“We’ll have to discuss that with the rest of the Order members, Harry,”� he said. “I think I trust the other Harry’s judgment on this, but others will not.”�

“Why not?”� Harry said, angry that they wouldn’t trust either version of him.

Lupin sighed and turned away. Harry paused, worried that he had upset him somehow. 

“You have to understand that the older Harry is the most powerful Auror–at least, he was the most powerful Auror while the Ministry still existed to hire Aurors. In fact, he’s simply the most powerful wizard alive, except for Voldemort,”� Lupin said slowly. “When he gained some of Shea’s abilities, he became…something truly terrifying. We thought our victory was assured the time he defeated Dumbledore in a sparring duel.”�

“I–He–can beat Dumbledore?”� Harry repeated, shocked.

“When he was seventeen, yes,”� Lupin nodded. “But that’s the thing, you’re not him, even if he thinks you are.”� Lupin stopped to massage his forehead. “This is too confusing.”�

“But what does that have to do with anything?”� Harry asked.

“We didn’t allow the other Harry to be in the Order until his seventeenth birthday,”� Lupin said. “And even that was seriously stretching our rules.”�

“But I want to help,”� Harry insisted. “I mean, I don’t want it to seem like you’ve lost an Order member, because he changed places with himself!”�

“I understand that,”� Lupin said gently. “I just said that the others might not.”�

Harry went silent. Here he was, already acting like a child while he was trying to convince someone that he was mature.

“We should call a meeting and explain the situation,”� Lupin said, breaking the sudden silence between them. Harry nodded, and the two of them went downstairs to the kitchen. 

~*~*~*~*~

Harry watched himself disappear in a glowing blue light. He hoped that he was doing the right thing. If not, he could always return using the same spell, but there was something finite about watching his younger self fade away three years into the future. 

The room was silent now, except for the familiar creaking of the old house. Harry turned to Dumbledore, looking at the wizard that he hadn’t seen in two years. Dumbledore’s death had hit him hard. To see him alive and well again was almost overpowering. He started to wonder what it would be like to see Sirius again, but stomped those thoughts out of his head before they took hold. He knew it was for the best that Sirius remain dead. 

“What will you do now, Harry?”� Dumbledore asked. His blue eyes, so shocked at the arrival of a second Harry, then hurt and stricken after finding out that he had contemplated and attempted suicide, were twinkling behind his half-moon glasses like usual once again. Harry had always associated that twinkle with a combination of mischief and knowing too much. 

Harry clasped his hands behind his back and paced the room, thinking for a moment. He hadn’t really considered his plans after the task of getting to the past time. Now he was capable of killing the Dark Lord, but how would he go about doing it?

“I think I’ll pretend to be sixteen, at least for a while,”� Harry said, facing the older wizard again. “I wonder, though, if I can join the Order of the Phoenix in this time and take part in the fight?”�

Dumbledore took a seat on the bed as he considered this. “You said you are an Auror?”�

“The Ministry hired me straight out of Hogwarts,”� Harry affirmed. Then his shoulders slumped a little. “Not that the Ministry exists anymore.”�

“What happened?”� Dumbledore asked, leaning forward.

Harry sighed, the memories of yet another bitter defeat taking over. “Last year, it looked like we were making some progress in the fight. The Ministry was finally starting to take action, so Voldemort decided to destroy it.”�

“Destroy it how?”�

“Blowing the underground complex up using a spell of his own invention and killing most of the workers within it during the day,”� Harry said impassively. Arthur Weasley and Alastor Moody had died that day. 

“I see,”� Dumbledore said, staring at some random spot on the wall. “Tell me, what did he do after that?”�

“What do you mean, sir?”�

“Did he take over England? Did he have any form of organized power put in place?”� Dumbledore clarified.

Harry shook his head. That was a puzzle that the Order of his time had been pondering ever since that blow. “No. He continued on as if everything was normal. The rest of the Order thinks this is because he just enjoys terrorizing people in a small group.”�

Dumbledore’s all-seeing eyes met his own. “And what do you think, Harry?”�

“I think he knows that an organized government is easier to take down from the outside or collapse on its own from the inside.”�

Harry watched as Dumbledore’s bright gaze slipped to the ground, the same stricken look as earlier taking hold. Harry wondered if he had said something to upset him.

“You’ve grown up,”� Dumbledore said simply.

Harry paused, waiting for the old headmaster to say more. Nothing more was coming. “I suppose I have, yes.”� 

“I am sorry that things have never worked out very well for you, Harry,”� Dumbledore said sadly. “I am, after all, responsible for most of it.”�

Harry wasn’t about to deny this, but he didn’t want to outright agree, either. He opted for silence. Dumbledore seemed to take this as a sign to continue the earlier conversation.

“How many people are you going to tell the truth?”� Dumbledore asked. “The Order will not allow a sixteen-year-old to join. You know that, I’m sure.”�

“That’s a good point,”� Harry admitted. Then he remembered the circumstances under which he had been allowed to join the first time around, in the future. “What if I could show them that I’m a powerful asset, even at sixteen?”�

“How would you do that?”� Dumbledore asked.

“Duel with someone, perhaps,”� Harry suggested. “Or I could duel the whole Order at once.”�

Dumbledore’s beard twitched. “You’re rather confident in your old age.”�

Harry inclined his head.

“I take it you took lessons from Shea?”� Dumbledore asked, interested in what the future held.

“I did. He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had,”� Harry said. “He still teaches me, actually. I’ve only beaten him in a duel once, and we practice often.”�

“I see,”� Dumbledore said. “So what are you going to tell everyone about your new eye colour?”�

“I was thinking we could tell them the truth, to an extent,”� Harry said. He had thought about this part. “That I tried to kill myself, and Shea saved me. In the process, some of his abilities were transferred to me.”�

Dumbledore was silent. “Why did you do that, Harry?”�

Harry shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I’ll tell you when I tell everyone else.”�

“Fair enough,”� Dumbledore said. “There is, however, a slight glitch in your plan. Shea isn’t due to arrive until tomorrow.”�

“That’s fine,”� Harry told him. “I can disguise myself until then.”�

“Well, if you can do that, you can disguise yourself indefinitely,”� Dumbledore suggested.

“I could,”� Harry agreed. “But this was actually a good thing to happen, from Voldemort’s point of view. He underestimated me the next time we met, because I had a lot of health problems for a year.”�

“Okay,”� Dumbledore agreed. “It sounds like you plan on telling Shea everything, as well, if he is to be included in this plot.”�

Harry nodded. “He’ll pick up on my powers the moment he sees me, there’s no point trying to hide the full truth from him. Plus, I’d like to continue my lessons from where I actually am, not from where I was as a sixteen-year-old.”�

“Very well,”� Dumbledore said. He stood up. “Is that everything, then?”�

Harry quirked an eyebrow. “Everything, sir?”�

“The arrangements for your plans for now, Harry.”�

“I suppose so, yes.”�

“Then you may want to don your disguise now, for we will be going downstairs to face the group,”� Dumbledore said, opening the door.

“Right,”� Harry said. He produced a case for contacts from his pocket, and Dumbledore chuckled.

“Somehow, I thought you were referring to a magical disguise, Harry,”� he said.

“Muggle methods work just fine for many things,”� Harry said as he took his glasses off and tilted his head back to insert the green-coloured lenses. “These are the kind with coloured lenses only, not prescription. How do I look?”�

Dumbledore’s beard twitched again. “Fine, if you plan on dueling Voldemort this evening. You may want to change into Muggle clothing. We’re on summer holiday, remember.”�

“Right,”� Harry said, somewhat embarrassed. 

Dumbledore stood outside the door while Harry found some clothes to change into. When Harry left the room and closed the door behind him, the headmaster said, “You should try to look more depressed or angry. That’s all we’ve seen of Harry for the past few days.”�

Harry felt a fleeting pang at these words as he remembered one of the reasons he had come to this exact time. Suicide had not been a good idea. 

“I’ll try, sir.”�

Harry looked around in wonder as they descended the stairs to enter the kitchen. Everything was exactly the same as when he had left. The grimness of the walls, the dank character of the hallways…it was as if there was no passage of time at all. Right down to the portrait of Mrs. Black on the wall in the next hallway, which was now screaming at someone as they entered the house.

“Filthy half-breeds! Dogs! Blood traitors! In my house! How dare you!”�

“This is getting old,”� Remus Lupin observed as he entered the kitchen. Dumbledore nodded for Harry to have a seat at the table. Harry did so, trying not to look like he was in shock, and more like he was angry or depressed. 

“How did it go, Remus?”� Dumbledore asked as he poured himself a cup of tea from a pot on the table and his own conjured mug.

“Not well,”� Lupin said wearily. He accepted a mug from Dumbledore with a nod of thanks. 

“Harry, dear!”� Molly Weasley’s voice filled the room as she entered to confront Harry. “You haven’t eaten all day! Shall I fix something up for you?”�

“Er, no thank you, Mrs. Weasley, I’m fine,”� Harry said quietly, thankful that so far the past was exactly as he remembered it. Instead of acting, he could simply quote himself from three years ago. When it suited him, anyway.

“Nonsense, Harry,”� she said, as he knew she would. Mrs. Weasley donned her apron and pulled out her wand, setting pots and pans on the kitchen stove. “I’ll just start dinner for everyone, then. It’s almost five now, isn’t it?”�

“On the dot, Molly,”� Lupin said, sipping his tea.

“Remus! I’m so glad you’re safe!”� Mrs. Weasley said. The she looked down at Harry and seemed to refrain from asking more questions. Harry knew that in the past he had asked what had happened, but he didn’t now. He couldn’t bear to make Mrs. Weasley cry again after the same conversation. 

_My first change to the timeline_ , he thought grimly. _Hopefully I can make a few more._


	3. Arrival of the Demon

Harry didn’t sleep well during his first night in the past. He wasn’t used to Ron’s snores anymore. Sharing a room with him again after a few years was noisier than he remembered. 

Harry arose early in the morning, after determining that he was not going to catch any more sleep. His wristwatch said it was eight, but the absence of light coming from underneath the grimy door told him that it was much earlier. He sat up in his bed and reached for his glasses on the nightstand, stopping midway when a jolt of pain shot through his ribs. He had completely forgotten about that injury, but there wasn’t much he could do about it right now. And it didn’t matter. It would heal on its own.

Harry dressed and glided out of the room in catlike silence to avoid waking Ron, as he was unsure of the exact time. He hadn’t reset his watch upon arrival. He sighed softly as he caught sight of an ancient grandfather clock in the hallway below the darkened staircase. If that was right, it was only four in the morning. 

The amount of sleep Harry managed to get wasn’t too important anymore. He was used to catching one or two full nights of sleep per week, with the average night consisting of only two or three hours. His work in the Order kept him busy, possibly more so than everyone else. But to have the time to sleep and the inability to do so was still disappointing for Harry.

He was almost to the kitchen to fix himself some tea when he heard low murmurs of conversation emerging from the room. Harry paused and hesitated just out of sight, completely silent and listening. It was Lupin and Dumbledore, and they were in deep conversation about something. He could feel the discontent within the room. He’d been asleep in his past; naturally, he wouldn’t remember hearing this conversation. After a moment’s internal debate, he decided that eavesdropping wasn’t the best idea, and to this end he entered the room. 

“I appreciate the offer, Remus, that’s very generous of you, but I have my reasons,”� Dumbledore was saying. The old wizard looked up as Harry entered and quietly took a seat at the table. “Good morning, Harry. Whatever brings you down here at this horrible hour?”�

“Couldn’t sleep,”� Harry said, pouring himself a cup of tea. He stole a look at Lupin, wondering what he had interrupted. The werewolf was staring into his own mug, preoccupied with his thoughts. “And what about you, sir?”�

“I’m just about to pick up your new teacher,”� Dumbledore said cheerily. Harry marveled at how the man’s eyes maintained their blue sparkle all the time. 

“And I’m still advising against bringing him here,”� Lupin said softly, looking up. His prematurely lined face held a quiet desperation. “Albus, you know what he is, you know who he worked for–”�

Harry’s cup almost fell from his hands as he registered what was going on. Lupin hadn’t trusted Shea at first. His former teacher hid his emotions regarding others well, Harry mused. Most of the Order members had been outwardly vicious to Shea in the beginning, and some still were, but Lupin had never taken part in the necromancer’s persecution. 

“I do know, Remus,”� Dumbledore said carefully. “It’s possible that I know better than you do.”� 

Lupin flushed slightly, chastised. But he continued, “I still think it’s an unnecessary risk.”�

“You may think that,”� Dumbledore said, “but it won’t change my decision.”�

Lupin shrugged and returned to his tea. Harry could hardly believe that Lupin held prejudice against Shea, a fellow not-quite human magical creature. He knew that the two had encountered each other occasionally in school, and Lupin had always been friendly toward the necromancer. Perhaps the Lupin of this time still remembered Shea’s betrayal of the Light side more freshly than their innocent school days. 

Harry felt the awkwardness and resentment crackling in the air and decided to break the silence.

“Why are you picking him up at four in the morning, sir?”� he asked solemnly.

“Because his plane is arriving just about now, Harry,”� Dumbledore said, standing up to leave. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”�

And he was gone. Lupin sighed and sipped his tea. Harry wanted to talk about this, but he knew he was going to stage his suicide today, and socializing wasn’t a suicidal trait. He therefore drank his tea in silence. 

~*~*~*~

“Absolutely not!”�

Mrs. Weasley’s fist connected with the table on her last shouted word for more emphasis, if the point wasn’t clear enough already. Harry squirmed in his seat. 

“He’s sixteen years old!”� she protested. “Not even of age yet! And you want him to take our Harry’s place in the Order?”�

The familiar table of Grimmauld Place’s kitchen, covered in a few more years of grime than Harry remembered, was currently surrounded by a few members of the Order of the Phoenix. Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Fred and George Weasley, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Remus Lupin, and the currently irate Mrs. Weasley were present. They had taken the situation surprisingly well, Harry thought. It was almost as if they were used to time travel and other strange phenomena. He was going to have to ask Lupin for a full description of the events of the past three years. But for now, he had other worries. 

“Our Harry almost died today!”� Mrs. Weasley shouted. “Even he can’t handle You-Know-Who! I hate to send him into those situations, but he’s the best we’ve got! And this younger version won’t be able to take his place.”�

It stung Harry that Mrs. Weasley, the most maternal figure he had ever known, kept referring to his creepy older self as “our Harry.”� It was as if Harry didn’t exist, or was an imposter–

But I am, he reminded himself. I’m not the all-powerful wizard they’re used to. 

“Molly,”� Lupin said calmly while Mrs. Weasley stopped for breath, “The nineteen-year-old Harry believes his younger self to be valuable to the Order, even if he’s not as powerful as he is. He’s still Harry.”�

“But he’s a child,”� she insisted. She looked directly at Harry for the first time, then looked away immediately with a sob, her shoulders heaving.

Harry wanted to say something in his defense, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to make himself sound immature again, like he had done with Lupin earlier.

“I agree with Mrs. Weasley’s judgment on this,”� Professor McGonagall spoke from the other end of the table. Harry’s heart sank. “We didn’t let the more experienced Harry in until he was at least seventeen. Sixteen is far too young. And we cannot have Harry Potter get himself killed trying to do something that he isn’t capable of.”�

“I don’t know,”� Hermione piped up for the first time. She looked at Harry uneasily. “It’s not like he’s any less experienced than the rest of us. Yes, it’s dangerous for him, but it’s dangerous for us too. It always is.”� 

Hermione had changed, Harry thought with regret. Her hair, formerly bushy and full of life, hung drab and unkempt. A pair of tortoise-shell framed glasses graced her face now, and a strange scar ran down her cheek. Not that Harry was one to comment on strange scars…

“This is just weird,”� Ron said into the silence. At least Ron was the same. He stared at Harry now. “I mean, I look at you, and it’s like seeing my best mate again.”�

“Ron,”� Hermione hissed.

Harry blinked, suddenly feeling very awkward. Ron wasn’t his best friend in the future? Was that what he meant?

“I think Harry was always good at dealing with You-Know-Who,”� Ron finished lamely, his ears beginning to turn red. 

“ ‘Always good at dealing with You-Know-Who?’”� Mrs. Weasley quoted, her wind coming back. “How many times has he nearly died, or been captured and–”� she broke off. 

“And what?”� Harry asked, curiosity overcoming his desire to remain quiet. 

No one answered him. Harry felt even more confused than he had been before. 

“Well, he seems to be Harry-like enough for me,”� Fred put in. 

“Right, inquisitive chap as always, our Harry,”� George agreed. “I think he should be in the Order.”�

“After all, what are we going to do with him otherwise?”� Fred asked. “Lock him upstairs and tell him to plug his ears?”�

The imposing figure of Kingsley Shacklebolt stood up from his seat, leaning over the table to give Harry the most intimidating stare he had endured yet. “I have no problems with the younger Potter joining. So long as he can defend himself. _Expell-_ ”�

“ _Protego_!”� Harry shouted, standing with his wand out and Shield Charm cast before Kingsley could finish. 

Kingsley sat down, satisfied. “I have no problems,”� he repeated.

Harry took a few deep breaths and pocketed his wand slowly, reluctant to leave it without his fingers safely clutched around it. “Is that really all my future self is to you? A weapon?”�

Everyone was silent, until Hermione spoke, her voice quiet and childlike.

“No, Harry,”� she said. “You’re our friend. But you’re also our weapon. You always have been.”�

~*~*~*~

Harry found himself becoming nervous as the hours crawled by. The idea of reliving his suicide attempt, even staged and with Shea on hand if he was to actually succeed, was not appealing. He had his general plan in mind. He was going to inform Shea of the situation, then go to Sirius’s room and lightly slit his wrist, just like he had the first time around. If things went the same way as they had in the past, Mrs. Weasley would be the one to find him–her sobs of grief and terror that he had heard the moment after revival were some of the reasons he was feeling nervous. It had been horrible to go through once, let alone twice, with full knowledge of what would happen.

It was now nine in the morning, and the kitchen was full of Harry’s friends. Guilt crept into the edges of his mind. He had been so stupid at sixteen. He looked around at all the people around him, enjoying a hearty breakfast cooked by Mrs. Weasley. Ron and his brothers were chatting animatedly, while Hermione and Ginny were discussing something more serious. Even a few Order members were present, such as Lupin, Tonks, and Moody. All of them cared about him as much as he cared about them. 

He sat in silence, reveling in the feeling of camaraderie in a time were things were not as desperate as they were to become. The fair mood in the room evaporated too soon.

The door to Grimmauld Place opened and shut, and the portrait of Mrs. Black, so mercifully quiet for the morning, began to shriek more loudly and more terribly than ever before. Her words ran together incoherently, until all that could be heard were plain screams. 

_Shea’s here_ , Harry mused to himself. He looked up from his plate of toast to stare at the entranceway to the kitchen. Most of the room was doing the same. While they were all used to the painting by now, it had been a particularly violent outburst.

Dumbledore entered first, his tall wizard hat scraping some dust from the top of the door. His beard twitched as he looked around at all the staring faces in the suddenly silent kitchen. 

“Good morning,”� he said cheerily. “I see you’ve made kippers, Molly, I’d be delighted to join you for breakfast.”�

Harry felt the tension in the room relax, then return in full force as a stranger appeared next to Dumbledore.

He was broken, Harry thought in sympathy and shock as he watched his “new”� private dueling instructor. He had forgotten what a wreck he had been when he first came to Grimmauld Place. Already a head shorter than Harry, Shea Quin stood in a cowering manner to make himself even smaller, radiating fear of the wizards in front of him. His pale, gleaming silver gaze flicked around as if looking for possible exits. And behind him, his long, pointed tail flicked nervously from side to side. 

“Ah,”� Dumbledore said, noting the change in the atmosphere. “This is Shea Quin. He will be staying with us for the summer. Why don’t you sit down for breakfast, Shea?”�

Shea made no response beyond a quick, shy nod. 

And that was all Dumbledore said on the matter. He sat down next to Harry and helped himself to the plate of kippers, munching contentedly on a piece of toast. Shea sat across from the two of them, silent and apprehensive.

It was hard for Harry to see Shea like this. Shea had just come out of therapy for suicidal behavior himself, Harry remembered. To return to the country and people that had made him so miserable for the first half of his life must have been one of the hardest things he had ever done. His fist clenched as he thought of all the prejudice based upon old stories that faced him while he was with the Order. It wasn’t fair.

Well, this time he won’t think I tried to kill myself because I met him, Harry thought. This time, he’ll know he has a friend.

The silence of the entire kitchen, save for Dumbledore’s chewing, continued for another few seconds until Moody harshly broke it. “Why did you bring that thing here, Albus?”�

Quin winced as if he had been slapped and stared at the table, dark brown locks falling into his metallic eyes. Dumbledore gently set his toast down and fixed Moody with an icy blue stare over his glasses. 

“I would appreciate it if you could show some courtesy toward guests, Alastor,”� he said softly. 

“Guests and monsters are two different things in my book,”� he continued in his growl of a voice, magical eye glaring back at Dumbledore.

“Monsters and friends are two different things in my book, as well,”� Dumbledore said. 

Harry tried to catch Quin’s eye, and succeeded when the necromancer looked up from the table in confusion. Harry knew from long experience that Quin’s empathic abilities were so sensitive that they were often overwhelming. Shea was sensing Harry’s sympathy and odd aura of power… the necromancer’s own power. Their eyes met for a moment. 

“And friends don’t join the enemy’s side in a time of war,”� Moody breathed, standing up slowly. “Because that makes them enemies, doesn’t it, Albus?”�

“Please sit down, Alastor,”� Dumbledore said patiently.

“I won’t share a table with this filth,”� Moody said adamantly, limping out of the kitchen. 

Everyone stared after him except for Dumbledore, who was back to his kippers, and Shea, who was staring at the table again. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and all the adults excused themselves and hurriedly followed Moody out of the room. 

Harry took an angry bite of toast, which was now cold after the long period of awkward silence. Across from him, Shea finally found the courage to speak.

“Albus, maybe I should go,”� he said softly. Harry started; he had forgotten that Shea had once possessed an American accent after living abroad for twenty years. 

“I need you, Shea,”� Dumbledore told him as he buttered another piece of toast. “They will all accept you in time.”�

Shea seemed too upset to argue the point. He sat in silence once more, eyes occasionally flicking to Harry and back to the table. Once he finished his meal, Dumbledore daintily wiped his mouth with a napkin conjured from thin air, and looked at Harry and Shea. 

“Why don’t you two get to know each other?”� Dumbledore suggested, a twinkle in his eyes. Student and teacher stood up at the same time, both loaded springs from the tension of the table. Harry could also sense Shea’s burning curiosity about his aura and odd feelings toward him. 

“Okay,”� Harry said simply. “We can go to the drawing room.”�

Shea nodded and followed him, looking slightly lost and intimidated by the house. Mrs. Black let out another shrill scream as they passed before dissolving into sobs. Harry ignored her and led his instructor to the somewhat-recently-cleaned drawing room. He cast a Silencing charm on the door after closing it firmly and fastening the lock with another spell. They could not be overheard.

“You know me somehow,”� Shea said the moment Harry turned to face him. “And you’re not a normal wizard. Nor are you an upcoming sixth year.”� 

“All correct,”� Harry said, smiling. “I figured you would know in about two seconds.”�

“Okay,”� Shea said, still confused. “So what’s going on?”�

Harry noted how his shyness disappeared in the presence of a friendly person. A person whom Shea knew would not hurt him. It made Harry sick to think about what had happened to the little necromancer. 

Harry sat down on a leather chair, releasing a puff of dust from the cushion to the air as he did. “It’s complicated…”� he said, and explained the whole situation.

Shea stood staring with those piercing silver eyes the whole time, his tail hanging motionless as he listened in awe. When Harry finished, Shea’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he could find something to say in response.

“That is complicated,”� he said finally.

“You trust me on all of this, right?”� Harry verified. 

Shea tentatively stepped closer to him. It pained Harry to see and sense Shea’s obvious fear of him. It hadn’t been so apparent in the past, when Harry lacked Shea’s empathic abilities. Harry’s sense of others’ emotions was not as overpowering as Shea’s, but it was still present and sometimes helpful. Now was one of those “not helpful”� times. Harry was used to sharing a special bond with Shea, an understanding. Shea was Harry’s best friend as well as a mentor. Starting from scratch was both exasperating and sad. 

“I think so,”� Shea said softly. “It makes sense. Well, sort of.”�

“Okay,”� Harry said, relieved. He had hoped Shea would go with this easily. 

“Why did you tell me all of this?”� Shea asked, tilting his head to the side. 

Another pang. Harry sighed and decided to divulge the future some more. “In the future, I trust you more than anyone else. You’re my best friend.”�

Shea blinked in amazement. “Really?”�

Harry smiled at his innocence. “Really. Besides that, you basically figured me out after looking at me once in the kitchen. It was going to be a task hiding from you. And I didn’t see the point in hiding from you.”�

Shea nodded, eyes now shyly fixed upon the floor. “Can you-can you really kill him?”� he changed the subject.

Harry nodded impassively. “I’ve hit him with the Killing Curse before. It didn’t do anything, but I can hit him.”�

“And I taught you how?”� Shea asked, looking up and meeting his gaze again.

“You did,”� Harry confirmed. 

Shea bit his lip and looked at the floor again. “I feel kind of sick,”� he said weakly.

Harry sighed. Shea, the most powerful being he had ever met, the most capable person with or without a wand in a duel, the man, no, the child with more of an excuse than anyone Harry knew to be bitter and vengeful, was hopelessly pacifistic. He was absolutely incapable of hurting another living creature unless someone helpless was being threatened. Harry had watched his teacher cry for hours, and sometimes resort to cutting his own skin after cursing Death Eaters in battle. And he never killed. Shea had always been a reluctant instructor because he knew his teachings would one day lead to murder. 

Harry sometimes wished that he could remain so sympathetic and innocent.

Harry let him feel sick for a moment before charging ahead with his plan to stage his own suicide. Shea didn’t look up until he was finished, and he agreed to the plan with a tiny nod. Harry couldn’t blame him for being unenthused. He wasn’t looking forward to it either. 

Harry and Shea went back to the kitchen so that the others would see them, and not suspect Shea of hurting him, as they were bound to do. Then Shea stayed while Harry traveled silently up the rickety stairs to Sirius’s room. 

Harry seated himself cross-legged on the stained wooden floor of the darkened bedchamber. He took a few deep breaths as memories rushed into his mind’s eye, then pushed them away. He didn’t want to cut too deep, just enough to make it look good. 

He conjured a knife. It was just a simple kitchen knife. He knew from watching and trying to stop Shea that razors actually worked best, but the knife would do well enough. Harry rolled up his Muggle shirt’s sleeve and dragged the blade along his flesh. Sharp pain ignited along his wrist, but it was nothing compared to other pains that he had endured. He watched with mixed satisfaction and disgust as his blood, black against the white of his skin in the dark, trailed down his hand and dripped onto the floor, a single drop. 

It wasn’t enough to kill him, but that would be the assumption when someone found him. Harry lay down, curling up slightly, and closed his eyes.


	4. Rescue of the Weapons

“You’re our friend. But you’re also our weapon. You always have been.”

Hermione’s words rang in Harry’s ears, echoing coldly in his mind. He was nothing but a murderer to these people. Their hope for the death of Voldemort, no matter what the cost to Harry would be. 

How could his older self allow that to happen?  Harry thought of the brief minutes he had spent with the nineteen-year-old version of himself. The cold silver eyes that held no emotion, even when the rest of the face was smiling. The rigid, controlled stance. The wariness and utter determination. The older Harry had no life beyond trying to kill someone. 

The younger Harry wanted Voldemort dead as well, but he hadn’t thought about how far he was willing to go to accomplish that. Obviously, he was willing to help out and travel to the future, but he hadn’t turned into a fighting machine capable of nothing else. Yet.

Harry was saved the trouble of finding a response when the “pop” sound of a wizard Apparating reached the Order’s ears. Harry fought the urge to jump up from his seat when he saw who the newcomer in the kitchen was. 

“Draco,” Lupin said quickly, as if eager for the distraction from the previous conversation. “What’s going on?”

The blonde, now nineteen, handsome, and clad in the robes of a Death Eater, strode over to the table and shook his head wearily.

“Things have calmed down now. The Dark Lord doesn’t have any plans at the moment beyond making potions,” Malfoy said. His voice was different. The arrogant drawl was replaced with something more personable, yet dignified.

“Potions?” Ron asked.

“What for, Draco?” Hermione inquired. 

“I’m not sure,” Malfoy said, shaking his head again. “But he’s using Quin’s blood. It’s something bad, he hasn’t told me what, though. I suspect it’s yet another pursuit of immortality.”

“That would make sense,” Lupin agreed, sighing. “Well, now we know why he captured Shea.”

“Yes, we do,” Malfoy said. His cool gaze had settled upon Harry. “What’s going on here?”

Harry shifted in his seat. Draco Malfoy was in the Order? Possibly spying on Voldemort for it? 

“Harry went back in time and sent his younger self to us to take his place,” Hermione said in a small voice when no one else answered. 

“Perfect,” Malfoy said. Suddenly the drawl in his voice was back. “Now we’re even worse off than before, right when the Dark Lord is adding another layer of invincibility.”

“Draco…” Hermione said warningly.

“So what are you planning on doing with him?” Malfoy went on, ignoring her. He leaned forward, directly in Harry’s face. “Train him up again? Hide him?”

“It’s not my fault I’m here, okay?” Harry burst out. “Well, it is, sort of—”

“Shut up, Potter,” Malfoy spat.

“Stop it!” Hermione shouted. “We’re dealing with it, Draco! Go get some sleep or something, then—”

“Don’t order me around, Hermione,” Malfoy said slowly.

“She’s right, Malfoy,” McGonagall said sharply. “You have been up for two days straight, take some rest.”

Malfoy inclined his head and left, robes billowing behind him. 

“Malfoy is in the Order?” Harry asked blankly.

“He’s our spy among the Death Eaters,” Lupin explained. 

“What about Snape?” Harry asked. No one answered him. Instead, they looked at each other awkwardly and avoided looking at him.

“Snape is dead,” Lupin said after the long pause. Harry was suspicious about their behavior, but he let it lie. 

“We need to move on to more important matters now,” McGonagall said, adjusting her glasses. “We must get Quin out of You-Know-Who’s hands.”

“What about Harry, then?” Hermione asked. 

McGonagall fixed him with a stern glare that hadn’t changed at all. “I’ve changed my mind. He shall be admitted to the Order. We need all the help we can get and can’t afford to stick to the old rules in such desperate times.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, relieved that he might be able to help after all.

She looked at him fixedly again. “Don’t thank me, Potter. It’s not going to be very pleasant for you.”

Harry nodded uneasily. 

“Right,” McGonagall said briskly. “Granger, have you had any luck with your research?”

Hermione sighed and fiddled with her thick glasses. “Not really. I think it must be some sort of spell, but I have no idea what. I’m starting to think it was a spell of his own invention.”

“If that’s the case, we’re going to have to think of another plan,” Shacklebolt mused. “Can’t provide a counterspell for something unknown.”

“We still haven’t found the other two Horcruxes,” Hermione reminded him. “I’m sure when Shea gets back he might be able to tell us more about the spell, we might be able to figure out a counterspell in the meantime.”

“Horcruxes?” Harry asked Lupin.

“Objects that Voldemort put pieces of his soul into,” Lupin explained quietly as the others continued talking. “If his body is killed, parts of his soul remain intact, so he can never truly die. He used to have seven of them, he’s down to three counting his physical body.”

“He split his soul?”

“That doesn’t surprise you, does it?”

Harry shook his head. “I guess not.”

“…which brings us to the matter of rescuing Shea,” McGonagall was saying. “Lupin, what do you think?”

“We need to get him back,” Lupin said firmly. “Voldemort can’t be allowed to use him. Who knows what he can do with his own, enslaved necromancer?”

“I agree,” McGonagall said.

“I don’t,” Shacklebolt growled. “That—thing—should be able to get himself out of trouble. We already wasted time and effort, walking into that trap. Voldemort is probably expecting us to come for our necromancer, as well. It’s just another ambush waiting to happen.”

“He should be able to rescue himself, right?” Ron asked. “He’s even better at dueling than Harry, after all. I mean, our Harry. I mean—” He cut off when Hermione elbowed him in the ribs.

“Shea doesn’t fight to preserve his own life,” Lupin said seriously. “He’s not going to hurt anyone to save himself. We have to go get him.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that,” Fred said. “Why train your whole life to be unbeatable in a duel if you’re going to lose on purpose every time you get into a duel?”

“He wasn’t always like that,” Lupin said quietly.

“Which is all very well, but what are we going to do about it?” McGonagall returned the group to the matter at hand. Harry got the impression that she was the leader in Dumbledore’s absence, just like she was at school. He wondered where the old wizard was.

The Order members agreed that rescuing the mysterious Shea was the best course of action, if only to keep him out of Voldemort’s experimental hands. Harry didn’t really know who this Shea was beyond a few mentions of him by his older self, and he was starting to think he didn’t want to know him. He seemed to be a matter of controversy. 

The plan was made with minimal arguments. Ron and Hermione volunteered to go. It was not to be an all-out attack, but rather a quick, hopefully quiet operation. 

Harry didn’t know whether to volunteer to go or not. He knew his older self would want him to. But would he be any help? Would it be like when he tried to rescue Sirius?

“I think Harry should come with us,” Ron said, making Harry’s decision for him.

“Why?” McGonagall asked.

“Well, Harry’s pretty good at rescuing people,” Ron vouched for him.

“Definitely,” Hermione agreed. 

Harry smiled. He could do this, he could help and be useful. “All right, then. I’ll go with you.”

~*~*~*~

Harry lost track of the time he spent lying on the floor pretending to be dead. His arm was aching, and his body was growing cold from loss of blood. He kept his eyes shut, reaching out and sensing that people were indeed nearby. They just hadn’t opened the door to take a look inside.

Tired of waiting, he sent a subtle nudge to Mrs. Weasley’s mind. A quiet compulsion to come check on Harry. It was a trick Shea had taught to him that was only possible with empathic powers. He could gently implant emotions into others, especially those without mental defenses like Occlumency.

The compulsion worked, for Harry heard her coming up the stairs, and felt the vibration of footsteps through the cold floor. 

_ Here we go _ , Harry thought grimly. 

The door creaked open. Mrs. Weasley screamed.

“Harry? Harry!” The panicked woman rushed to his side and shook him roughly, shrieking again presumably at the sight of a small pool of blood gathered around his wrist. 

“Mum?” Ron’s voice came. “What are you—bloody hell!”

Harry stopped his breathing. A hand checked for his pulse first at his uncut wrist, then at his neck. He had cast a spell to make his pulse unnoticeable, and it seemed to work. 

“Harry, wake up!” Mrs. Weasley sobbed. “Why did you do this? Why won’t you wake up?”

A third presence, Hermione, joined the group with a scream.

“No, no, no, no, no…” she chanted, kneeling next to Harry. Then—

“Wait!” Hermione said. “Shea can bring him back!”

“He can?” Ron said stupidly, presumably stricken by the sight in front of him.

“He’s a necromancer, Ron, of course he can.” Harry was proud of her suggesting the use of Shea’s powers. He wondered if she had been the one to fetch Shea in his own timeline, as well. 

A minute later, Shea was on the scene. Harry felt his torn emotions as he entered the room. 

“Can you bring him back?” Hermione asked desperately. Mrs. Weasley was still sobbing horribly, and Ron was quiet. Lupin and Dumbledore were now outside of the room. 

“I think so,” Shea said, his voice quivering. “He’s lost a lot of blood, though, we might just lose him again the moment he wakes up—”

Mrs. Weasley left his side. Harry guessed that she had launched herself at Shea. “You have to wake him up! He has to be alive! Please!”

Mrs. Weasley lost all coherence after that. Shea approached Harry slowly and knelt at his side.

“Can you resurrect him, Shea?” Dumbledore asked, his voice artfully grave. Harry sensed that the old man was slightly amused and slightly mortified at the same time. Dumbledore never ceased to confuse him.

Harry felt Shea’s quivering fingers trace the cut on his wrist. The necromancer felt cold even to Harry’s blood-deprived arm. “Yes, sir,” Shea replied quietly. “But he’ll need a blood-replenishing potion immediately.”

“I’ll send for Severus,” the old wizard said. “He brews medical potions at his home.”

Harry forced himself not to move as hot anger at the mention of “Severus” flooded his veins, as if in replacement for the blood. Anger at Snape and anger at himself…

Shea must have felt the sudden surge of anger, for his hand withdrew as if he had been burned. He probably had been, mentally. Harry quickly Occluded his mind as best as he could to avoid distracting Shea any more.

“What are you waiting for?” Ron demanded. “Bring him back!”

The room was now silent except for Mrs. Weasley’s continued sobs. Shea positioned Harry’s limbs so that he was on his back and straightened. Then he placed one shaking hand on Harry’s forehead and the other on his stomach. 

It occurred to Harry then how his friends had blatantly disregarded his wish to die. There was no mention of “maybe he wants to be dead, he just sliced his own wrist.” There was only “raise the silly boy, quickly.” He wasn’t sure if he was glad to have such caring friends, or upset to have such unobservant friends. Either way, it didn’t matter.

Harry had told Shea to make it look like he was raising him, and after a few moments Harry completed the illusion by opening his eyes. His silver eyes, for he had removed his contacts.

Several people gasped. Hermione was in his face, pelting him with worried gibberish. Mrs. Weasley gathered him up in her arms, now crying into his hair. 

“What did you do to him?” Lupin demanded, grabbing Shea by his shirt collar and slamming him into the stained wall. 

“I don’t know,” Shea whispered, eyes brimming with tears. “It’s never happened before—”

Lupin gave the little necromancer a final shove into the wall before joining the strange huddle on the wooden floor. “Are you all right, Harry?”

Harry remembered Lupin asking him this his past. He remembered how he could barely see thanks to his new eyes, how his arm was aching, how his whole body was cold and stiff, and how angry he had been because his plan to kill himself hadn’t worked. He remembered Lupin’s as the most absurd question anyone had ever asked him.

“I’m fine,” Harry said bitterly. He looked past Hermione’s bushy hair at Shea, who was huddled against the wall like a dog who feared he was going to be kicked. No one had even thanked him. 

“Why did you do that, Harry? Why?” Hermione asked, tears bright in her eyes.

Harry didn’t answer. She didn’t deserve an answer, really. Now that he thought about it, the fact that no one had considered his wishes was upsetting. 

“Leave him alone, Hermione,” Lupin said, more calm after taking his anger out on Shea.

The room was full of stifling tension for several minutes, until Snape arrived. Harry averted his gaze, Occluding his mind as thoroughly as possible. He could never fully Occlude as an empath. He had forgotten that Snape had been called to help…how was he going to hide his situation from a shrewd, always-suspicious Legilimens?

“The blood-replenishing potion,” Snape said stiffly, taking in the scene with quick black eyes. He smirked coldly. “My, my, Potter. A new low.”

“Now is not the time for taunting, Severus,” Lupin snapped, grabbing the potion from the other’s hands. 

Harry stared fixedly at the floor as Snape tried to look into his “newly”-silver eyes. “Oh, but it is, Lupin. I see our new necromancer is a failure,” Snape sneered, glaring at Shea. 

As a single tear leaked onto Shea’s cheek, Harry didn’t feel so badly about killing Snape in his seventh year anymore.

“Drink this, Harry,” Mrs. Weasley said, taking the potion from Lupin and bringing it to Harry’s lips. Harry’s eyes were forced up for a fatal split second, and they met with Snape’s cold black gaze.

The Potions Master’s eyes narrowed, cool and calculating under knitted eyebrows. Harry kept his eyes on his potion to avoid looking at Snape again, but he knew the damage had been done. He was going to have to confront Snape to make sure the spy didn’t do anything stupid. 

When Harry had killed him it had been to avenge Dumbledore and the belief that Snape was really working for Voldemort…but afterward it had been discovered that Snape was no true Death Eater at all, he was merely protecting Draco from the wrath of the Dark Lord. Guilt had consumed Harry for months after he found this out. But he had no way of knowing how he kept his Dark Lord sated for information, how much of the Order’s workings he betrayed in order to keep his spot in Voldemort’s inner circle.

Yes, Snape would have to be dealt with.

Harry finished his bitter-tasting potion without complaint, still trying to avoid the stares of everyone in the room. Indeed, Shea had messed up in his timeline. The shy little necromancer had not raised anything for months, and this stored power had been released to Harry by accident. Plus, Shea had not raised any humans in years, so he had overcompensated. Necromancy, as Harry was learning, was more a precise science than a field of magic, and only with practice and frequent use can one with the power be any good at it.

The results of this mishap had been more of a curse than a blessing, although Dumbledore had been pleased with the change. Harry’s striking green eyes were turned into the ghostly orbs of a necromancer, just like Shea’s strange gaze. Colors were brighter, but he went blind on occasion. The feelings of others suddenly flooded into his mind, filling him with emotions that were not his own. He healed faster and took pain more easily. Regular food and sleep were not required for him to function anymore.

But the biggest change was the sudden rush of power. It filled his core, giving him strength. It ached to escape his body. This was not the normal magic he had come to know, this was the power of a necromancer. If he didn’t use his new powers for too long, they would come out on their own, usually in a bad way at a bad time.

This was the part that Harry considered to be more of a curse than anything. He had to raise the dead every few weeks voluntarily, or else the dead might come to him. It was always horrific. It was a good thing that he didn’t have to sleep as much anymore, because his sleep was always disturbed by nightmares. He could never get used to it.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, had been elated to find out that Harry was more powerful than the average wizard. Suddenly, the old man had a better chance at beating Voldemort at last. Harry had known that Dumbledore was using him, but he let it happen because they had a common goal. Now, even more aware of events, he wasn’t sure how he felt about the strangely manipulative headmaster.

“Are you feeling better, Harry dear?” Mrs. Weasley asked in a strange, high-pitched voice. 

Harry didn’t respond. That was another foolish question. How was he supposed to react to being alive after killing himself, anyway? He didn’t remember the first time too 

clearly, probably because of the lack of blood. He opted for looking faint and closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to say anything, at least not yet.

When he opened his eyes again, he would have to tell them something….and he would also be able to continue his duty. As an assassin. 

 


	5. Interrogations

The dungeon’s cold floor was mostly covered in a puddle of stagnant water several inches deep, leaving a mere foot of dry stone in the corner for the lone occupant to sit on. The smallest sliver of light illuminated the corridor from the door at the end, enough to see glimmers on the water. Shea grimaced as his tail drifted too far, disturbing the puddle with a small splash before he could whisk it away.

Shea Quin hated water. It was cold and wet, the wet part often leading to the cold. When the Death Eaters had tossed him brutally into the cell, he had landed in the puddle. His clothes, already ripped and covered in his blood, had been soaked for the past day or so of his isolation. The damp cell stubbornly refused to let anything dry. He knew any magic he performed would be detected immediately, so he refrained from using wandless magic to warm himself up or dry his clothes. He was content in his cell, and didn’t want to attract unwanted attention.

Shea didn’t know why Voldemort was bothering with the isolation tactic. His former master knew him better than this. For Shea, loneliness was just another feature of life. He had been an outcast from the moment of his birth. Craving the company of others was a perfectly normal pastime for the broken-hearted necromancer.

And it wasn’t like he was being deprived of food and water. He never ate. He didn’t need water. The only thing he had found over the years that he could stomach was milk, but it wasn’t necessary.

The darkness didn’t bother him much, either. While he didn’t need food to survive, he did need an influx of positive emotions from others. It was strange, but if he went too long in an environment of hatred, he would feel weak and his eyes would stop working, to be followed by his pointed ears. In a more pleasant environment, he would feel stronger, and his senses would be normal or enhanced. But this rarely happened, so Shea was quite used to being blind.

Indeed, Shea was capable of sitting curled up against the stone wall in his square foot of dry space indefinitely. And he knew that the Dark Lord knew this. So to pass the time, Shea set about to wondering what Voldemort was up to.

Shea’s first thought was that he was being used as bait. He knew his student, Harry Potter, had a bad habit of trying to save people. But then, Harry would know that Shea was more than capable of escaping on his own. Then again, Harry would know that Shea would refuse to fight his way to escape. And Voldemort would know both these things as well, so using Shea as a lure was a gamble that probably wouldn’t work too well.

Shea was fairly certain that he wasn’t being kept there for interrogation purposes. He had already withstood days of the Cruciatus Curse along with other, more creative methods of torture. He was ready to face it again if need be. He would never rejoin Voldemort, not after what he did all those years ago. A spell of seclusion in a cell full of water wasn’t likely to change that.

It was possible that Shea was just being held until the Dark Lord had another use for him. They had already chained him to an alter and taken liberal samples of his blood, probably for use in potion making. He shuddered to think of what could be made using blood as powerful as his in a potion. And it had been a while since he had raised anything; soon the Dark Lord wouldn’t even have to torture him before he raised a field of zombies for Dark purposes.

It also occurred to Shea that Voldemort simply didn’t know what to do with him. He had already taken his blood. Was that all the Dark Lord wanted? It was possible.

Shea’s musings were interrupted when he sensed someone approaching. He concentrated. Three people, one of them very, very powerful. Great.

The door to the corridor opened for the first time in two days, flooding his weak eyes with too much light. He winced and brought a hand to his face to block it, but nothing could block out the cold, high-pitched voice.

“Are you still here, my necromancer?” Voldemort asked as he swept in front of the cell bars. Two masked Death Eaters accompanied him on either side. Shea felt like an animal in a cage, which was no doubt the Dark Lord’s intent in putting him in such a holding cell. There were three walls of rock and one wall that was strong bars. The rest of the cells in the basement of Voldemort’s castle and manor, Shea noted, were separated from the world by a thick metal door.

“I’m not your necromancer,” Shea responded stiffly.

“Of course, of course,” Voldemort said, red eyes gleaming as he smiled. “You belong to the Order of the Phoenix now. You are always welcome to return to me, you know.”

Shea didn’t respond to that. Voldemort laughed.

“Still not in a talkative mood, I see?” Voldemort’s smile disappeared. Shea was glad of this; the smile made him look scarier. At least the angry expression looked more natural. “Bring him out, Lucius.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Lucius Malfoy said, a quiver in his voice as he opened the cell door to do his master’s bidding.

“Are you afraid of little Shea?” Voldemort asked airily, also hearing the fear in his voice.

“No, never, my Lord,” Malfoy asserted. Shea could sense otherwise. He was surprised that Malfoy had the nerve to lie to his master.

Draco’s father was still a slave of the Dark Lord. Shea pitied the young spy for a moment before realizing his own situation was probably worse.

Shea allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. He also allowed the elder Malfoy to fasten a collar around his neck and chains around his wrists. Then he quietly followed Malfoy through the water and out of the cell.

“Docile little thing today, aren’t you?” Voldemort commented, reaching out to gently stroke Shea’s cheek with a long, pale finger. Shea flinched away, and Voldemort’s sinister smile returned. “Perhaps we have made some progress, indeed.”

Progress? Toward what? Shea wondered. Knowing that Voldemort was always one to explain his evil plans with relish, Shea asked.

“Toward breaking you, of course,” Voldemort answered civilly. The Dark Lord sounded as if Shea had asked what time the cricket match started. “You will be mine again, necromancer. You will belong to me soon enough.”

So Voldemort did have a use for him, Shea thought. That could not be good.

“Bring my necromancer to Bella’s favourite room, and have Bella spend some…” Voldemort paused, caressing Shea’s face again with his cold, pale hand. “Quality time with him.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Malfoy and the other Death Eater replied in unison. Malfoy roughly tugged on Shea’s chains to get him moving.

“I wonder, though,” Voldemort said lazily as the strange trio reached the door. “Why haven’t you left yet, little one?”

Comprehension dawned upon Shea as the Dark Lord voiced this thought. He had no idea that Shea had gone pacifist. Shea had stopped using his magic to defend himself at the expense of others after his time with Voldemort, as a result of his actions. He wondered if telling Voldemort of this change in philosophy was to his advantage, and after a second of debate decided it was not. The less the enemy knew, the better.

“Tell me,” Voldemort said, approaching him. Shea Occluded his mind, knowing it was a futile attempt but trying anyway. “Why haven’t you merely blown a hole in the wall, or killed all of my Death Eaters with a thought? Why are you allowing yourself to be tortured every day?”

_No reason_ , Shea thought frantically as Voldemort took his chin and forced his silver eyes to look into the red snakelike eyes. He knew his attempts to Occlude failed when Voldemort smiled coldly once again.

“My dear Shea,” Voldemort said quietly. “You are much more brave than you used to be.”

Shea blinked. That was not the response he expected.

“We’ll have to change that,” Voldemort sneered, releasing Shea’s chin and pushing him away. “I won’t have a useless necromancer. Continue, Lucius!”

The Death Eaters led him back up the winding torch-lit staircase and into one of the numerous torture chambers. Shea memorized the layout in case he did end up escaping. It was old habit to think that way. Malfoy locked him into place against the wall, and the two left without speaking. Shea felt their fear of him. For once, he wasn’t too upset about people being afraid of him.

The minutes ticked by. Shea calmly waited for Bellatrix Lestrange to arrive. He could feel her presence right outside of the door, and knew that she was trying to make him nervous before her grand entrance by making him wait. His left shoulder was starting to hurt, as it had been injured earlier and didn’t appreciate being stretched out by chains.

After a few more minutes of “suspenseful” waiting, Bellatrix entered, slamming the door behind her. The dim candles in the room faltered as the wind rushed by them. She approached Shea slowly, a tight grin that didn’t reach her hooded eyes appearing on her pale face.

“My master says that you need to be taught your place, my little one,” Bellatrix informed him.

Shea didn’t answer. He felt more people beyond the door. Three nervous and determined people.

“Tut tut, little one,” Bellatrix said, pulling her wand out. “I thought that I had taught you a few lessons by now. I guess we’ll have to keep going. _Cru_ -"

“ _Stupefy_!” a familiar voice incanted. Bellatrix fell to the ground, revealing Order members Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.

“Thanks,” he told them as Hermione chanted off a spell to undo his bonds. He fell when he was suddenly deprived of support, and Harry stepped forward to catch him easily.

Harry. There was something horribly wrong with Harry. His power was depleted, and his emotions were more frantic than usual. Plus, he hadn’t used magic to catch him, and Harry hated being touched. Shea looked up at him as he got to his feet and gasped.

His eyes no longer matched Shea’s. They were back to being green.

“What’s going-?” Shea began, but was cut off by Hermione.

“It’s a long story, we’ll explain later. Right now we have to get you out of here,” the young witch told him tersely.

“Right,” Shea said, still disconcerted by the change. “There’s a passageway to the back grounds on the left if we go down this main staircase a few more levels, or a first-floor window two levels up.”

“Oh, Shea,” Hermione shook her head. “Why didn’t you just escape on your own?”

“I might have had to hurt someone!” Shea said indignantly.

“Come off it,” Ron snorted as he looked at Shea’s bloodstained attire. “They certainly didn’t mind hurting you!”

“Let’s take the downstairs passageway,” Harry suggested. “There’s less of a chance that we’ll run into someone that way.”

“Good thinking,” Hermione said. “Lead the way, Shea.”

“I don’t suppose we can get my wand before leaving?” Shea inquired in a small voice.

“Where is it?” Hermione asked.

Shea winced. “Voldemort’s private chambers. Never mind, I’ll just get a new one later.”

“Thank you for not making us go there,” Ron said earnestly. “Now, this may be a great place for discussion for you, but I don’t like it that much. Let’s get out of the torture chamber.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Weasley, I think it’s a great place for discussion,” Lucius Malfoy’s voice said from behind them. The group whirled around to see five Death Eaters standing in the doorway and on the stairway landing. He leveled his wand in the general direction of the Order members. “Let’s talk.”

* * *

“You know you can talk to me at any time,” Lupin said for the umpteenth time that morning. The werewolf had been assigned “counseling” duty more or less by default, and Harry was starting to think he should let Lupin in on the plot, if only to stop him from wasting more of his time.

The werewolf’s words were greeted with yet more silence. When Lupin reached out to take Harry’s hand in what was intended to be a comforting gesture, Harry decided that enough was enough.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly, whisking his hand away from the tabletop and drawing his wand. Lupin backed away and reached for his own wand apprehensively, but calmed down when Harry used it merely to cast a Silencing charm on the room.

“I probably should have trusted you from the beginning, but let me fill you in now,” Harry said, and he informed Lupin of his situation and plot.

Lupin listened with a cool, collected expression. When Harry was finished, he said, “Harry, it’s perfectly normal to…explain things with the extraordinary rather than facing the truth—"

“I’m not lying,” Harry cut him off.

“He’s not lying, Remus,” Dumbledore’s voice put in. Harry blinked and looked over his shoulder; the old Headmaster was standing calmly in the corner. How did he escape Harry’s detection? “It is quite the story, yes, but all perfectly true. Harry is here, three years older and wiser, to vanquish Voldemort once and for all.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said quietly. He was still unnerved that Dumbledore could sneak up on him. “How did you get in here, sir?”

“Me? I have been standing here the whole time, Harry,” the old wizard replied lightly. “I don’t think you should take up a career in therapy anytime soon, Remus.”

Lupin flushed slightly, but he was disconcerted by the news. “So our Harry is three years in the future right now?”

Harry felt slightly put out at the mention of “our Harry”, but he let it slide. “Yes, the sixteen-year-old version of myself has taken my place, as I have taken his.”

Lupin frowned. “Is he—is he still—"

“Suicidal?” Harry offered. “Probably. But I find that problems larger than one’s own tend to take one’s mind off of the smaller problems.”

“What do you mean?” Lupin asked worriedly.

“I mean the future is not pleasant. He’ll be keeping busy, hopefully enough so that he won’t be thinking of how to do himself in,” Harry said, feeling odd because he was talking about himself.

“So you’re not really—"

“No,” Harry said firmly. “I just had to stage all that to explain my powers and appearance.”

Lupin buried his head in his hands. Dumbledore seated himself at the table and pulled a lemon drop out of his pocket to snack on. Harry calmly waited for more questions.

Lupin didn’t disappoint. “What did Shea do to you?”

Harry sighed. This was getting old now. “He overcompensated. I wasn’t dead for long, he hadn’t raised anything in a long time, and he had forgotten how much power it takes to raise a human. All of these factors led him to use too much magic, and it just transferred to me.”

When Lupin remained quiet, Harry added, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t hurt him again. He’s a little bit…” Harry considered, searching for the right word. “Fragile.”

Lupin nodded, still in shock. Harry felt okay with putting his hands back on the tabletop, and so he did. “Well, if that’s all,” he said, “I’d like to move on to more important matters. I know the locations of three of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, and we would do well to destroy them as soon as possible.”

Dumbledore actually choked on his lemon drop in shock. When he had recovered, he gasped, “Why didn’t you tell me of this immediately, Harry?”

“Had to get other things out of the way first,” Harry explained.

“Horcruxes?” Lupin looked up, bewildered. “Aren’t those—"

“He made six of them to store parts of his soul,” Harry said briefly. “That way when I try to kill him, it doesn’t work.”

“One of them has already been destroyed,” Dumbledore said. “The diary of Tom Riddle at the age of sixteen. Tell me, Harry, what of the three you know about?”

“They are the cup of Hufflepuff, the locket of Slytherin, and that ring that you’re going to find in a few weeks,” Harry said. He conjured a piece of parchment and wrote the locations on it magically. He gave the slip to Dumbledore, who took it with slightly trembling fingers. “I’ve charmed this parchment so that only you and select Order members can read it. To others it will just look like scrap,” Harry explained.

Dumbledore read the list several times, memorizing each item before pocketing the parchment. “That leaves two more to find. Do you know about those?”

Harry shook his head regretfully, dark hair falling into his bright eyes. “We’ve been trying to find those for a year. Actually, one of them is the snake, Nagini, but Voldemort realized that we’ve been taking out his Horcruxes, and he hid her somewhere. Wait,” Harry stood up suddenly to pace the small room. “She’s not hidden right now. She’s always at her master’s side.”

“You aren’t going to charge into Voldemort’s hideout to kill his snake, are you, Harry?” Dumbledore asked gravely, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

Harry considered, then sat down, feeling mildly foolish. “I’ll kill her at the same time that I kill him,” he decided aloud.

“Very good, Harry, but what is the seventh Horcrux?” Dumbledore pressed.

Harry cocked an eyebrow. He had expected Dumbledore to be enthusiastic about the knowledge of the Horcruxes, but he hadn’t anticipated such a fixation upon the topic. The Headmaster was a manipulator, that was a fact. Harry had always suspected, upon hearing the prophecy, that Dumbledore only cared about Harry as far as Harry’s usefulness. He was halfway tempted to keep his knowledge to himself because of all this, but for now their goals were identical. And it was Dumbledore who had told him everything in the first place, so….

“We’re not sure,” Harry said truthfully. “We think it’s either something of Gryffindor’s or Ravenclaw’s.”

“To fit the pattern,” Dumbledore mused. “Yes, I had suspected this as well.”

Harry allowed himself a small smile. “Well, you did tell it to me first, sir.”

“Did I?” Dumbledore asked airily. “What a clever wizard I am.”

_Too clever_ , Harry agreed mentally. He stood up again. “Is Snape still here?”

“Professor Snape, Harry,” Dumbledore corrected absently.

“Yes, him. Is he?”

“You can find him in the kitchen, I believe,” Dumbledore said. “Molly is making spaghetti for lunch.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said. He smiled to himself again as he left the upstairs room to descend the stairway. He was about to give Professor Snape an assignment. The irony would have been great enough to make him laugh out loud, if only he laughed anymore.

The spicy smell of Mrs. Weasley’s meatballs reached Harry’s nose as he padded softly past the portrait of Mrs. Black to the kitchen. He sighed. He missed eating meat sometimes.

True to Dumbledore’s prediction, the greasy-haired Potions Master was standing stiffly by the threshold, waiting for Mrs. Weasley to finish cooking the meal. It struck Harry as odd that Snape would actually eat at the Order headquarters for once, but then, Mrs. Weasley’s dishes were irresistible.

Harry approached as quietly as he could, wanting to, for once in his life, surprise Snape instead of the other way around.

“Professor Snape,” Harry said softly. Snape’s head whirled too fast for him to have known that Harry was there, so he knew he had succeeded. He held a back a grim smile. “May I have a word?”

Snape looked down at him, an expression of disdain upon his sallow face. Harry could feel the curiosity battling the dislike of Harry in Snape’s mind. No matter how well one could Occlude the mind, there was no defense against an empath. Similarly, as an empath, Harry couldn’t block a Legilimens. He stared back unblinkingly, allowing the black eyes to grasp tantalizing images from his head.

“Make it quick, Potter,” Snape said finally. “I don’t have much time for suicides.”

“Very well,” Harry said, ignoring the bait. “Let’s go somewhere more private, shall we?”

“Very well,” Snape sneered, inclining his head slightly. “Lead the way, Potter.”

Feeling an exasperated sense of déjà vu, Harry led Snape to the drawing room where he had explained everything to Shea.

“So, Mr. Potter,” Snape said silkily as Harry shut and charmed the door, “Care to explain why you seem to be thinking of murdering me?”

_Not the best way to start the conversation_ , Harry thought. Of all the things for Snape to have seen in his head already, that was probably the worst.

“Certainly, sir,” Harry said easily. Snape didn’t rattle him now as much as he used to. In fact, in some perverse way, Harry was having fun sparring with his former teacher. “I killed you a year and a half from now. But that’s only because you killed Dumbledore, and I felt inclined to return the favor.”

That wiped the characteristic smirk from Snape’s face. With his audience blissfully silent, Harry explained the whole situation yet again.

“Completely idiotic as your story is,” Snape said, affixing his sneer right back into place, “I can tell that you are telling the truth. You have such a worthless mind, Potter.”

“So you tell me often,” Harry said, smirking back. “I would think your vastly superior mind could come up with a different insult now and again.”

Snape advanced upon him, trying to intimidate him with the height difference. Harry merely cocked an eyebrow at the other. “I am still your Professor, Potter, and as such—"

“I graduated two years ago,” Harry interrupted.

Snape smiled coldly. “Not in this time, you didn’t. Like I was saying, as such, you will show some respect.”

“Of course, sir,” Harry said, giving him a mock bow. “Now that you know all about me, we can move on to your assignment.”

“My—" Snape tripped over the word a few times. “My what, Potter?”

“Your assignment. As in, your task as appointed by me for you to complete,” Harry said smoothly, still bowing.

“Your insolence is astounding, Potter,” Snape hissed.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said easily. He stood up straight again and watched with amusement as Snape’s fingers curled and uncurled, ready to choke the nineteen-year-old. “Anyway, your assignment is simple. You will determine the object and location of Voldemort’s seventh and final Horcrux. And then you will report these items to me.”

Snape cocked his head slightly and fixed Harry with a calculating stare. “So you have been working to kill the Dark Lord for several years.”

“I believe we have covered this, yes,” Harry confirmed.

“It just surprises me that you know what you’re doing, Potter,” Snape sneered. It was the highest compliment Snape had ever given Harry. “But tell me, Potter, why should I do what you…assign?”

“I’ve killed you once, haven’t I?” Harry asked with a smile.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Potter. I receive death threats from the Dark Lord five times a week.”

“Yes, but few of them are as sincere as mine,” Harry said, smile evaporating from his face. He let the memory of Snape’s murder rise to the top of his thoughts again so that Snape may glimpse it.

Harry had won. Snape was floundering. He had lost control of the situation, and now genuine fear of the Boy Who Lived was entering his mind. Harry knew that it was one thing to be threatened with death, but it was quite another to know that it would happen.

Snape’s shoulders slumped the tiniest bit, defeated. “I will do this, Potter, but not out of fear of you or as a favor to you in any way. I will do this because I want to see the Dark Lord dead.”

“I don’t care why you do it, just so long as you do it,” Harry said in a low voice. “You’re the only person in such a position to do this with any ease.”

“Ease,” Snape snorted. “Do you have any idea, Potter, any at all, of what will happen if I am—"

“Yes,” Harry said simply. Snape stopped his rant at the single, sad word, and Harry continued on to the next topic at hand. “I must ask you not to go to Voldemort with any information about me, beyond the fact that I tried to kill myself, and now I’m having health problems.”

“Becoming a necromancer is a health problem, is it?” Snape asked derisively. Even after such a huge blow to his ego as having a student appoint a task to him, Snape still managed to be a git.

“I’m mostly blind, Professor.”

“How is that any different than before?”

“I also can’t eat many foods anymore,” Harry said sadly, ignoring the scathing comment. “Like the meatballs Mrs. Weasley is preparing right now. We should return to lunch. Remember, don’t mention—"

“Your secrets are safe with me, Potter,” Snape interrupted acidly.

“I hope so,” Harry said softly. Then he smiled again. “Let’s go get some spaghetti.”

He turned to leave.

“You’ve become very Slytherin, Potter,” Snape said, causing the younger wizard to stop in mid-stride. Snape smirked down at him before exiting the room first. “Take that as you will.”


	6. Escape

**7\. Escape**

Death Eaters poured into the room, one after the other, each with his or her wand pointed at the quartet of Order members. Shea took a deep breath as Malfoy came closer, mentally cursing himself for endangering the lives of Harry, Ron, and Hermione with his own personal issues. He had to admit to himself that he honestly hadn’t expected a rescue, but the fact remained that if he didn’t feel so guilty about using his powers, he would have saved himself several days ago. And they wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

His personal ban against hurting people did not extend to using his abilities to protect others, however. It looked like he was going to have to fight anyway.

“Well?” Malfoy asked, his voice quiet and deadly. “Give me a good reason why we shouldn’t simply kill all of you right now? My master will be so pleased.”

“Because your master won’t be pleased, Malfoy,” Hermione said defiantly. Her hand was shaking, and she gripped her wand tightly.

“The brat is right,” another Death Eater, possibly Nott, said. “Potter and the necromancer are supposed to be for the Dark Lord to deal with alone.”

They were surrounded now. Shea knew of a spell his could perform to deal with this, but he didn’t want to do it…oh, how he didn’t want to do it…

“What of Granger and Weasley, the golden couple of the Order?” Malfoy sneered. “Any reason to keep them alive?”

“Just get it over with, you great coward!” Hermione snapped. “All you can do is make idle threats, wondering how you can please your master best, you sick—"

“Language, Mudblood brat. Language,” Malfoy said. Shea felt a surge of anger come from Malfoy, the same one necessary to work the Killing Curse. “Very well, then, there’s not much of a reason to keep you around. _Avada_ —"

“ _Stupefy_!” Hermione shouted before Malfoy could finish. The older wizard conjured a shield and the spell bounced harmlessly away. The first spells exchanged, the room turned into a chaotic mess of light.

Shea hesitated for a moment, wandless and unsure. He watched as Harry, his private student for three years, missed his target of Malfoy. Harry missed. Harry’s aim was perfect, there was something horribly wrong going on. If Harry had been himself, Shea would not have acted, but since that was not the case….

“ _Circino accendo_ ,” Shea thought to himself, roughly pushing Ron and Hermione to the ground and thrusting Harry on top of them with his tail. A blast of blue and white flame tore away from his body, over the forms of his rescuers, and into the surrounding Death Eaters. There was no defense against this spell; Shea was simply too quick and too powerful.

Some of the Death Eaters caught on fire, others were just knocked down. Malfoy’s robes were alight in the magical flame, and the Dark wizard could not extinguish it with water from his wand. A few others shrieked and ran about aimlessly, rolling on the floor to try and put the unusually hot flames out. The scene would have been comical if the enemies were not literally burning alive.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron took the opportunity to Stun them all, one by one. Shea waved a hand around the room, and the blue flames went away. Then he started shaking.

“Good job, Shea,” Hermione said tightly, standing up and gripping his arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Shea stared at what he had just done. The bodies around the torture chamber. All the bodies. “I just…I just…” he stuttered.

“You just saved us all, now come on,” Ron said forcefully, leading the way out of the chamber and back to the winding staircase.

The odd quartet descended the stairs, wands at the ready. Ron took the lead while Hermione watched their backs, and Harry tended to Shea in the middle. The necromancer couldn’t stop shivering, and the fact that Harry was holding onto his arm wasn’t helping the issue. Ever since Bellatrix Lestrange had managed to break him last year through weeks of torture, Harry had loathed physical contact of any sort. He hadn’t told anyone exactly what had happened, but it wasn’t necessary. What mattered was how Harry had changed.

They made their way down, past the dungeons, and Shea nodded toward the little door in the wall. Hermione tapped the lock with a quick “Alohamora,” followed by another spell when this didn’t work. Voices started to echo down the stairs, no doubt belonging to angry Death Eaters, so Shea stepped forward. He waved a hand over the locked door, and there was a click from inside.

The group rushed inside the passage, closing the door as gently as possible. Once they were all in, Shea locked the door again with a similar wave of the hand. Then they ran.

* * * 

“Why aren’t you eating your meatballs, dear?”

Harry looked up to find Mrs. Weasley directly in his face, sauce-covered spoon in hand. He blinked. He knew from long experience that eating meat only led to problems for him, but in this timeline the others had known about his condition for only a day now. He certainly couldn’t act like he knew all of the quirks of being part necromancer in so short of a time.

“I had some,” Harry lied quickly.

Mrs. Weasley shook the spoon at him warningly, sending spatters of red sauce onto his cheek, which she cleaned off with her thumb. “Eat another one, Harry dear. You’ve been looking thin lately.”

Harry sighed, knowing the only way she would leave him alone was to appease her. He stabbed a meatball with his fork, knowing what would happen once it entered his mouth. He would feel slightly nauseous for an hour or so, and then he would experience sharp pains all over his body, starting from his stomach. After throwing up for a few minutes, he would be able to function properly until he was laying in his bed for the night. There, the pains would return, sharper than before, leaving his body vulnerable to accidental magic on his part.

Oh well, he thought to himself as he chewed, allowing himself to savor the taste. They have to find out eventually.

* * * 

The next day, when Harry had recovered, was the first day of lessons with Shea.

“I don’t know what to teach you,” the little necromancer said nervously, his tail flicking back and forth behind him. “I didn’t know where to start before, and now you’ve been learning with me for three years, apparently…”

“Why don’t we have a practice duel?” Harry suggested.

The two were in the drawing room, which was mostly clear of furniture and clutter. Shafts of morning light from the tall window fell across Shea’s face, giving his eyes an eerie glow.

Shea nodded. “That’s a good plan, I guess. All right. Well, let’s bow…”

Harry bowed slightly, then fired the first curse. “ _Expelliarmus_!”

“ _Protego_!” Shea said quickly. Harry’s curse flew in a different direction.

“ _Reducto_!” Harry returned. Shea dodged easily, and Harry tried another curse. And another. Then a few more. Shea didn’t cast a single spell until the end.

“ _Circino accendo_ ,” Shea said, not raising his wand.

A blast of flame rushed from the necromancer’s body. Harry conjured a shield just in time, but this moment of distraction cost him as Shea said in a calm tone, “ _Petrificus totalus_.”

A moment later, Harry found himself staring at the water-stained ceiling, unable to move. He tried to cast the countercurse wandlessly and non-verbally, but Shea was stopping him somehow. He would have sighed if he wasn’t cursed. Even rusty from being out of touch with wizards for twenty years, Shea was still unbeatable.

Shea’s concerned, elfin face appeared in Harry’s field of vision, blocking his view of the yellowed ceiling. “I’m sorry,” he said apologetically as he waved his wand to undo the curse. “Did I hurt you? I figured you would block the fire okay and you did, but I didn’t think you would fall so heavily, it sounded like you were hurt, I’m sorry.”

Harry shook his head, bringing a hand to his forehead as the headache began. “I’m fine.”

“Okay. I’m so sorry,” Shea said again, wringing his hands awkwardly.

“Forget it,” Harry said shortly. “I suggested the practice duel, remember?”

Shea seemed to ponder this for a moment, then shrug it off. “You’re really good,” he said, bending down to offer Harry a hand up. Harry eyed the proffered hand apprehensively and ignored it, pushing himself off the ground without help.

“Thanks,” Harry said. He could sense that Shea was feeling slightly awkward about the moment, and he decided to explain.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t like to be touched,” Harry said as he brushed himself off.

“Oh,” Shea said quietly. He blinked. “Why not?”

Harry’s expression and mood must have darkened considerably, because Shea winced and looked away. Harry took a deep breath to calm his emotions, then said, “It’s a long story. I guess you might as well know, it’s important regarding my abilities.”

“Okay,” Shea said, sitting down on a dusty chair and looking expectantly at Harry, like a child about to be told a bedtime story.

Harry had forgotten just how childlike Shea was when he had first met the tiny necromancer. He had been molded by years of abuse and neglect when he really was a child, followed by years of loneliness and exile as an adult. He had next to no social skills, and fully expected people to hate him. He was too shy, too scared of the world. He didn’t seem like the type to be able to fight twenty Death Eaters and Voldemort himself at once, but he was. All he had to do was read about a spell, and it was committed to memory and perfected. Shea was Hermione, only more powerful and even smarter. He was just too broken to realize it most of the time.

Harry shook himself from his musings and focused on his own story. “In the future, I’m not just targeted by Voldemort for the prophecy. I’m a pretty good Auror, and I’ve killed quite a few Death Eaters, and I’ve almost killed him once or twice. I’m dangerous to him, and he needs me to be dead.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Shea said absentmindedly.

Harry’s face twitched in what was almost a smile. “I suppose it does. But last year he tried to turn me to his side again—"

“Wait, you joined him?” Shea interrupted, jumping in his seat.

“No,” Harry said slowly. “I meant, he tried again to turn me. Not to turn me again.”

“Oh,” Shea said smally. “Sorry. Keep going.”

_Copy editor_ , Harry thought with a shake of his head before continuing. “He thought that I was becoming something like a Dark Wizard, just like him. And so he thought that I would be willing to join him to expand my powers, if I wasn’t so keen on killing him.”

“And he thought wrong?”

“Very wrong,” Harry agreed. “He managed to capture me and make the offer, and when I refused, he didn’t kill me. He…”

A few seconds ticked by while Harry struggled to come up with any words. “He what?” Shea asked softly.

“He tried to force me to join him,” Harry said, recalling his worst nightmares. “Rather, Bellatrix did. I escaped eventually using a necromancy curse like the one you just used on me, only more powerful. Shea-I mean,” Harry said, fumbling with the time difference, “You said it was because I was so near death, and I produced the blast almost unconsciously. And I cast the spell when she was about to touch me again.”

Shea was a perfect audience, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide by the end of the story. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Harry said. He could have said whose fault it really was, but he didn’t want to incriminate anyone two years before they did anything wrong.

Silence hung thick in the musty air for a moment more before Shea jumped up and said, “So I guess I should probably teach you something.”

“Right,” Harry said, glad to get back to business.

“You have all the basics down, and a lot of more advanced things too,” Shea mused, walking around and letting his tail drag on the floor. “And you fought me with a mix of wizardry and necromancy, that was interesting. Which one do you think is more useful in a duel?”

“Usually wizardry,” Harry said. “It takes longer to focus energy for necromancy. It depends on if you want a spell to have a more powerful and lasting effect in a few seconds, or if you want a less powerful and shorter-term spell immediately.”

Shea paused. “Did I tell you that?”

Harry smiled. “Actually, yes.”

“This is too weird.”

 


End file.
